Factors influencing prostate cancer treatment decisions for African American (AA) and Caucasian (CA) men.

Abstract

6517 Background: Prostate cancer causes a disproportionate burden to AA men, and AA men are less likely than CA men to receive aggressive treatment. This is the first study to examine factors influencing treatment decision-making of AA vs. CA men in a population-based cohort. Methods: 1171 men were enrolled soon after diagnosis and before treatment through Rapid Case Ascertainment of the North Carolina state cancer registry. Researchers asked patients regarding their priorities in treatment decision-making and information sources. Differences in AA and CA men were compared using the chi-square test. Results: The most important factor for both AA and CA men was curing cancer, and preserving QOL was second most important. However, AA men were more concerned about additional factors including impact on daily activities (74% very important AA vs 58% CA for intermediate/high risk disease), recovery time (81% vs 50%), cost (66% vs 32%) and treatment time (76% vs 39%) (p < .001 for each item). The most important source of information impacting treatment decisions for CA men were physician recommendations (61%), personal research (32%) and family/friend opinion (7%); for AA men, the corresponding numbers were 50%, 32% and 19%. Conclusions: AA and CA men with prostate cancer are both concerned about curing cancer, but AA men are more likely to consider multiple other social and personal factors as important in their decision-making process. Improved understanding of these differences may provide opportunities to address racial disparities in prostate cancer. [Table: see text]